Blufflands and Prairies: Southern
Minnesota's Place in the Fabric of America's Story will partner the
efforts of Winona State University, the Minnesota History Center, Southeast
Service Cooperative (SSC), and Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative
(SW/WC) to enrich American History for over 125,000 students. The
collaboration will achieve two goals during its three-year timeframe:
GOAL 1. Professional development for up to
700 American history teachers will enhance curriculum by integrating
inquiry-based learning approaches with content introduction and research.
The objectives are: 1) heightened teacher content knowledge, centered of
five core themes, through week-long summer institutes and one-day trainings
held throughout the K-12 school year; newly acquired content will be
incorporated into the teachers curriculum; and 2) teachers will learn more
innovative teaching strategies that bridge content with inquiry-based
learning and the use of primary sources in research.
GOAL 2. An ongoing relationship among
southern Minnesota K-16 educators and other history specialists will
enrich learning of American History for area students. The objectives
are: 1) A network will be established among all partner groups, designed to
continue beyond the life of this project; 2) Southern Minnesota will
experience an annual increase in participation in History Day activities;
and 3) A formal system will be implemented for ongoing dissemination and
replication of curriculum and teaching strategies.
Strategies to achieve the project goals
include numerous one-day professional development sessions; week-long summer
institutes; on-site visits to schools by history specialists; consulting
assistance for local and state History Day implementation; field trips to
the History Center and regional historic sites; project evaluator formative
evaluation to assist in ongoing project improvement; and electronic
networking by participants. Following are more details about how the
teachers and the project will achieve these goals.
Goal
1_____________________________________________________________________
Objective 1: Heightened content knowledge
will be accomplished by combining a chronological approach with core
themes. Blufflands and Prairies will build teachers' knowledge and
ability in five core themes:
1) Political and Constitutional History: The
Construction of American Democracy;
2) Native American Cultures;
3) Immigration: The Gathering of Peoples and Ideas;
4) Place and American History: Southern Minnesota in the Fabric of the
American Story;
5) Economics and Commerce in American History
Objective 2: Inquiry, research,
experiential teaching methodologies involves building teacher and local
school capacity to transform the teaching of American History into an
inquiry-based, laboratory type of environment, enhancing existing curriculum
with primary sources and experiential opportunities. Cohort
participants and other educators receiving training will become leaders in
the implementation of the new standards. During the course of the
project, the teachers will apply their enhanced content knowledge and
teaching strategies to refine existing unit plans and curriculum guides and
create new ones. Instructional team members will facilitate discussion
forums and collaborative development among cohort members. The
teachers will be encouraged to share their work with each other and to
modify ideas and methods to be most effective. Working with
colleagues, cohort teachers will use the alignment tool developed by the
Minnesota Department of Education to assess and realign their curriculum as
needed.
Summer Institutes: Each summer,
Blufflands and Prairies will offer graduate-level institutes with
rigorous expectations in reading, discussions, pedagogical modeling and
practice, reflection, and lesson planning. Each institute will
concentrate on three eras of American history, as outlined by the
National History Standards.
Monthly Seminars: Seven times a year
from September through April, teachers in each of the two cohorts (southeast
and southwest Minnesota) will have the opportunity to expand content
knowledge and pedagogical practices in day-long seminars coordinated by the
project partners and located at both southeast and southwest Minnesota
sites.
GOAL
2___________________________________________________________________
Objective 1. A K-16 network will be
established in southern Minnesota among K-12 and post-secondary
teachers, the Minnesota Historical Society staff, and other history
specialists, facilitated by the Blufflands and Prairies partners and
designed to continue beyond the life of this project. The summer
institutes and full-day training sessions will be augmented by networking
sessions held in conjunction with the training events. The southeast
and southwest cohorts will convene once each year in St. Paul at an event
that will include informal, participation-driven discussion session.
In addition to these face-to-face forums, Southeast and Southwest Service
Cooperatives will jointly implement distance communication strategies to
facilitate uninterrupted networking by cohort participants.
Objective 2. Increased involvement of
schools in National History Day in Minnesota will be accomplished with
leadership by Tim Hoogland, Director of National History Day. The
Historical Society will support the involvement of southern Minnesota
schools in National History Day with the following activities: 1) Full-day
teacher training sessions will be conducted each year of the three-year
project in southeast and southwest Minnesota. This training will
prepare teachers with in-depth strategies to help them guide and facilitate
students in conducting research projects. 2) The cohorts will each spend a
day at the Minnesota History Center archives, Internet and other media for
research and presentation of projects, and incorporation of historical site
interpretation in student learning experiences. 3) Historical Society staff
will provide outreach services to teachers in each region with up to three
site visits and interaction by phone, Internet and email. Up to 15
school districts will receive technical assistance in implementing National
History Day programs.
Objective 3. Document, disseminate, and
replicate curriculum and practices. Blufflands and Prairies: Southern
Minnesota's Place in the Fabric of America's story will disseminate its
curriculum, exemplary teaching methods, and findings of the project through
a variety of media, including journal publications, a website containing
downloadable files, promotion through the Minnesota Historical Society,
Winona State University, the Southeast and the Southwest Service
Cooperatives, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the history teacher
network that will be established through the project.
